Final defendant in West Seattle prostitution ring can't decide on 15-year term, trial

19-year-old defendant: 'I don't know what to do.'

By LEVI PULKKINEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Updated 10:00 pm, Thursday, August 27, 2009

A day after three admitted associates of a West Seattle-based gang pleaded guilty to prostitution-related charges, the fourth and final defendant in the case declined to change his plea despite the threat of federal indictment. Offered an opportunity to plead Friday,19-year-old Deshawn Clark declined to change his not guilty plea in the nine prostitution-related counts against him, including the charge that he profited from the prostitution of a then-15-year-old girl.

Speaking in King County Superior Court, Clark's attorney, Alfoster Garrett, Jr., asked that prosecutors give his client through the weekend to decide whether to accept the plea, which would likely carry a 15-year prison term. Barring a plea, the defendants in the case have been warned that federal human trafficking charges could be filed, which would carry a significantly stiffer penalty.

"I'm begging the state to give (Clark) at least until Monday," Garrett said. "It'll give a chance to a 19-year-old young man who … has been hardened to an extent by this.

"This decision," the attorney added, "is weighing on his heart, and he doesn't know what to do."

Thursday's guilty pleas by Clark's co-defendants followed meetings earlier this week with federal authorities, when all four men were warned they would likely charges in U.S. District Court if they did not plead guilty to state charges, attorneys on both sides said. The three men who took the prosecution's offer -- Clark's older brother, Shawn Clark, as well as Thomas L. Foster and Gerald Nathaniel Jackson -- will likely face prison sentences ranging from four to nine years.

Following a string of arrests beginning with a December prostitution sting, King County prosecutors charged six men and alleged that at least 13 young women and girls had been drawn into the prostitution ring.

In charging documents, prosecutors asserted that the men used violence and coercion to force seven women and girls to prostitute themselves. Nearly all of the prostitutes' earnings went to the pimps, five of whom were members or associates of the Westside Street Mobb gang, prosecutors allege.

Speaking outside the courtroom Thursday, several of the young women associated with the case defended Foster and the others charged in the case, accusing prosecutors of bullying the men into pleading guilty. Though some admitted to earning money for the men through prostitution -- and allowed that Foster did attack the mother of his children -- they denied prosecutors allegations that the men forced them to sell sex.

Since charges were filed, prosecutors alleged Shawn Clark and his mother, Glenda Ann Thomas, had pressured several young women not to testify in the case. In court documents, police alleged that Thomas also threatened to have a former co-defendant raped in jail for agreeing to testify in the case.

Deshawn Clark has been charged with nine pimping-related counts against him, which include two counts of commercial sex abuse of a minor. Appearing in court Thursday to request additional time to make a decision, the shackled teen cried as his brother prepared to plead guilty.

Having received one additional day to weigh his options, Deshawn Clark told King County Superior Court Judge Helen Halpert he still had not made up his mind. Several members of his family had encouraged him not to take the plea deal, and the young man told Halpert he wanted to speak with his grandmother before making a decision.

"I'm confused, really," he told the judge. "I'm frustrated, and my family doesn't want me to take the deal. … Fifteen years is a long time.

"It's my whole life."

Addressing Deshawn Clark and his attorney, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Sean O'Donnell said he is not inclined to extend the offer through the weekend but would consider accepting a plea if certain, unspecified conditions were met.

O'Donnell also chastised the young man's family for "playing armchair quarterback."

"They're not in jail," the prosecutor said. "They've not gone through the (evidence), as his attorney has."

Several family members, O'Donnell argued, are "influencing Mr. Clark in a way that Mr. Clark is going to regret for a very, very long time."

For her part, Halpert did not advise the young man but did order that he be allowed to contact his grandmother.

Addressing the judge Thursday, Shawn Clark, 21, admitted to calling one woman from jail and asking her to prostitute herself to help him make bail. He also admitted to pressuring two young women not to testify against him or his co-defendants.

Writing the court, Shawn Clark said he made thousands of dollars pimping a childhood friend whom he was dating. He described grooming her for prostitution, then threatening her with violence once she'd begun working for him.

"I would do 'nice' things for her, like buy her a ring or get her lunch," the West Seattle-raised man wrote the court. "These were ways to get (her) to think I loved her and they were ways to get (her) to think she loved me.

"If she loved me, it'd be easier for me to ask her to do things for me -- like prostitute."

Having pleaded guilty to nine counts -- including two counts of witness tampering -- Clark will likely be sentenced to nine years in prison as part of an agreed upon sentencing recommendation.

Speaking outside the court, Foster's 18-year-old sister, Kadora Foster, and friend of seven years, Brian Shellabarger, claimed Thomas Foster had been pushed into making the confession. Her brother, Kadora Foster said, "has two kids and he's afraid of going to the federal penitentiary."

She also dismissed prosecutors' claims that the Westside Street Mobb -- whose alleged members are currently facing charges of bank fraud and unlawful gun possession, and have been implicated in at least two fatal shootings -- is a criminal street gang.

"I represent Westside and I'm no gangster," Kadora Foster said. "It's a clique. It's not a gang. It's a clique."

Allowing that her brother "put hands on" the mother of his 3-year-old and 1-year-old children, Kadora Foster said her brother was angry that the woman had apparently been prostituting herself with one of the children in the hotel room. Two of the witnesses in the case also said they passed their earnings from prostitution to the defendants.

Shellabarger said Thomas Foster came to live with him after the youth was shot in May 2008. Though they are not related by blood, Shellabarger said he considers Foster to be a member of his family.

Though he did not deny prosecutors claims that the defendants had been profiting from the young women's prostitution, Shellabarger said prosecutors were wrong to claim the women were forced into it. The young women, he said, prostituted themselves to help their boyfriends' make a living.

"He's not a bad guy," Shellabarger said.

Foster's own description of his actions, though, did not match those given by his sister or his friends.

Writing the court, the 20-year-old admitted to making the mother of his two children "walk the track" and threatened to leave her if she did not make money.

"When she did make money, I would take all of from her," Foster said in a statement to the court. "I did not care if she might get hurt (working on the street). I just wanted to make money."

Foster pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree promoting prostitution, conspiracy to commit the same crime and second-degree assault, a charged stemming from an incident in West Seattle during which Foster admitted to punching and attempting to strangle his children's mother.

Jackson, who will likely receive a four-year prison term, pleaded guilty to a single count of first-degree promoting prostitution. Like Foster, Jackson has agreed to a prosecutor's recommended sentence that falls substantially higher than the Legislature-mandated standard range.

In entering the plea, Jackson, unlike Clark or Foster, denied membership in the Westside Street Mobb but said he does associate with members and had turned to them for protection.

Admitted Street Mobb member Mycah Johnson and another co-defendant, Desmond Manago, had previously pleaded guilty in the case. Manago did not agree to testify and was not a member of the Westside Street Mobb.

The gang, thought to be centered near the Delridge Community Center in West Seattle, was formed in mid-2006 and is believed to have 20 to 40 members, law enforcement contend. In addition to the state case against the Clarks, Thomas and Jackson, federal prosecutors have filed charges against several alleged members of the Bloods-affiliated gang.